That was the sign that welcomed me as I boarded an elevator to descend below the Atlanta street to catch my train back to the airport.

The moment I stepped into the elevator with a few other tourists, an overwhelming smell of fresh urine filled the space. It was obvious that the device – and the sign – did little to offer any deterrent.

The moment the doors opened, everyone in the elevator immediately jumped to escape and breathe fresh(er) air again.

You could argue that this was an isolated event. That being said, it isn’t exactly an experience the Atlanta tourism board wants to endorse. What could have made the situation different?

Conversion ConnectionObviously, for websites, the trouble isn’t anything as bad as a stranger’s urine coating the walls and floor of an elevator car.

Even so, that doesn’t mean there isn’t something offensive or frustrating that is keeping them away from your website.

Instead of the stench of urine, it may instead be a wayward popup that is making it impossible for them to check out or a misplaced call to action missing a crucial link.

A Simple SolutionBack to my unfortunate elevator incident. If the elevator were your website, Google Analytics and other traditional analytics tools would only be able to tell you that one visitor bounced within the first few seconds before the doors even closed.

It would also be able to tell you that the remaining three visitors left the elevator shortly after it came to a stop.

However, it simply couldn’t tell you what happened between the time a visitor came and left your website, or rather – entered and left the elevator.

That information alone would never be able to show you the problem pushing visitors off your site… and potentially over to a competitor.

In Atlanta, the good news is that there were cameras installed to not only address the situation but (hopefully) also trigger a cleanup crew. Sure, it wasn’t enough to stop it from happening at that immediate moment, but it could help the facilities crew identify patterns, troublesome offenders, or even develop an alternative solution.

The solution for your website is similar, though instead of a physical camera mounted in the corner of the elevator car, this solution for websites is in the form of conversion optimization tools.

We recently had a Lucky Orange user explain just how insight made all of the difference. This user, one of the world’s largest sports travel companies, averaged around 1 million page views each month. Even so, they realized they needed a better system to understand what features were being used by consumers and in the process also improve conversion rates.

Dynamic heatmaps and recordings in particular assisted the company. User pain points and bottle necks became clear, and improving that experience made for better conversion rates. The company is actually currently undergoing a site re-design based on the insights gathered by Lucky Orange.

Had this user not turned to conversion optimization, how many more of those page views would have ended with a visitor leaving and never returning? How much money would have been missed simply because Google Analytics and other traditional analytic options can’t provide the insight?

Websites of every niche, industry, and size have a lot to lose by not turning to conversion optimization. If nothing more, it stops visitors from having a stinky experience that will end in them bouncing to your competition.